ENTERTAINMENT
From Issue #21
30 Seconds To Mars
By Surya Bhattacharya
People go solo in their careers, but Jared Leto likes to spin it backwards, so he formed a band. With their follow-up album, A Beautiful Lie, Jared says without his mates, things could have
been mediocre.
“I did have my brother (Shannon Leto, drummer) there last time (for their previous self-titled debut) but the difference is when I wrote a song this time, I would bring it to the table and I was able to experience different colours and opinions and kind of this artistic, creative viewpoint I didn’t have last time. A bit more challenge, and sometimes it’s uncomfortable but ultimately it makes the songs better.”
“Tomo (Tomo Milicevic, guitarist) would specifically take things and elevate them. He was able to take things I had
in my head and make them a reality and it enabled me to stop thinking as an instrumentalist and really be able to act on every little whim of my imagination. They contributed to different elements that completely surprised me. That was fun, to look forward to playing a
song in a lab in LA where Tomo would do something with a guitar effect and it would be, ‘oh that’s great,’” says Jared. “Lot of happy accidents,” adds Tomo. “I would say, ‘look at this idea’ and they would change things like a simple chord or melody and Matt (Matt Wachter) thinks like a bassist, so he was able to change things around dynamically and he would always take what I did” and “play as many notes as possible” says Matt. Jared jokes, “And to throw them away after I would scream at him ‘Enough! Enough! Enough!’ but on songs like, Fantasy, he took three progressions and added an element to it and made it more alive,” says Jared. He adds, “We are all for each other. We’re four filters and I am the guy with the flag running up the hill and these are the guys pushing me up. It’s a really good collaboration.”
